The ESA is planning on using a technology based on harpoons to try and control the problem of space junk orbiting the planet.
Faced with the challenge of capturing tumbling satellites to clear key orbits, ESA is considering turning to an ancient terrestrial technology: the harpoon.
Several different solutions have been considered, including a throw-net, clamping mechanisms, robotic arms and a tethered harpoon.
The harpoon concept has already undergone initial investigations by Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK.
Harpoons rely on three physical actions to ensure safe and clean grasping: a high-energy impact into the target, piercing the structure and then reeling it in.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by anubi on Saturday June 28 2014, @03:55AM
and put it in your pocket...
The relative velocity to you is apt to be a killer.
I would almost say launch anything that could catch up to it, lock onto it, then do a hari-kari deorbital maneuver to result in burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:42AM
What? No re-usability? How about using some tungsten rods as harpoons - whatever they capture burns, they remain intact.
---
(ducks)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:59AM
I still say with so many teeny tiny dangerous bits out there? We need a tar baby. Anybody remember the old Uncle Remus story? We need a big ball of material, hell it wouldn't even need to be sticky, just as long as it could absorb impacts and stay in a big chunk like ballistic gel. Once the thing has gotten as much of the little bits of crap it can hold stuck in/to it we then fire the rocket we have stuck in the thing and shoot the ball of crap into the atmosphere to burn up.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday June 28 2014, @05:53AM
Look at these tables of muzzle velocities for different rounds of ammunition [chuckhawks.com].
Take the top one, 4040 feet per second, and feed that to Google and it replies that its right at 2750 miles per hour.
( Note that one is also among the fastest ones on the list... )
Now, lets take some orbital ranges we are likely to find crap at... From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]...
Throw in the energy is proportional to the square of the velocity and you can see we we are facing a lethal hail of shrapnel that makes anything we have made with explosive armaments on earth look like a lady powdering her face. The velocities alone are up to an order of magnitude higher than high-power rifle fire at point-blank range.
Making a mess in outer space isn't near as easy to clean up as a mess made here. The only vacuum cleaners we have are gravitational fields, and they have been working for a helluva long time within our solar system to clean the debris out of it, and its not done yet - as we obviously still see meteor showers and shooting stars - and that is just the what fell into Earth's gravitational well.
That is the basis for what I type when I state one of my biggest fears on too much reliance on satellites is that a hostile entity could launch a load of pea gravel into an elliptical retrograde orbit... such a thing would make it impossible for anyone to have a satellite.
( By retrograde orbit, I mean one that is "going the other way"; not rotating with Earth but counter to the Earth's rotation, the effect being quite similar to one car on the freeway going full speed in the wrong lane, and elliptical meaning he is weaving back and forth across all the lanes. Its just a matter of time before he gets everyone. It only takes one smidgeon of gravel to do in a satellite, just as it only takes one round to do in an elephant. )
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday June 28 2014, @06:15AM
I did not get my text exact... It should have been a "falling" star... [youtube.com] Old farts like me that might enjoy a couple of minutes of something that was common when we were a kid...made me remember my getting my first radio to work...
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:14AM
Dude, don't feed google but do your own computing locally.
$ units '4040 feet/second' 'miles/hour'
* 2754.5455
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday June 30 2014, @10:27PM
That is exactly why the tar baby would work, as trying to build a craft to repeatedly take those impacts AND capture the crap hitting it? Pretty much impossible. But imagine a big thick blob of glop, thick and heavy? It could take as many hits as you want and even if it just went through the first time it would slow it down. A single mini rocket embedded in it for steering means you could move it from one orbital plane to the next until it gets so thick with shit it becomes hard to move and when that happens? Just point it down and let it burn up in the thickening air.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by darkfeline on Sunday June 29 2014, @12:50AM
Uh, by hari-kari, do you mean harakiri? Wikipedia says that harakiri is often misspelled harikari, much to my befuddlement, as I've not yet encountered it misspelled like so.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:17AM
... we carry a harpoon [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday June 28 2014, @05:10AM
From hell's depths I spit at thee, ::: OK, I am fairly sure I am mangling this. What is the internet for, if not to cite classic literature! (And everyone in IT needs to read Moby Dick, it is not about what you think it is about.) Actual quote?
Wow. Much hate. Every obsession. Are you going to eat that whale meat? (Doge pic here)
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Saturday June 28 2014, @06:57AM
I've read Moby Dick. In one chapter he goes into detail about various whales. I would have assumed it had been copied from Wikipedia if it existed at the time.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday June 28 2014, @07:06AM
Or Melville, as was appropriate for writers of an earlier era (pre-Game of Thongs), actually worked on a whaling vessel, out of Nantucket, officered by Quakers, such a Starbucks? So he knew his whales? Oh, how low we have fallen, to accuse Melville of plagiarism! What about Whitman, Walt? He almost admited it! And, well, I blush in shame to accuse the masters of the past. Even if they did "stand on the shoulders of giants", they are much more talented than any (almost, I am open to nominations) of the present.
(Score: 1) by karmawhore on Saturday June 28 2014, @01:19PM
I would love to see a c.1850 Wikipedia! Melville could edit the Whale article to arrange them into standard bookbinding sizes. Orca would redirect to Grampus.
=kw= lurkin' to please
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DrMag on Saturday June 28 2014, @03:19PM
Looking at the pictures, I can't imagine a massive satellite on a long tether would be that easy to control. Wouldn't it make more sense to harpoon the satellite, then winch the control satellite in until the two are more rigidly connected? Basically mount a fueled motor onto the satellite, de-orbit as usual.
Or maybe I've just played too much Kerbal Space Program.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 28 2014, @03:20PM
And what about ll the little bits that break off when the harpoon hits? More space junk!